


Little Fox

by Hermit9



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Astronomy, Campfires, Childhood, Fluff, Gen, Marshmallows, POV Outsider, Prompt Fill, supernaturalpromptchallenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7980226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Camp is a way to develop skills and enjoy nature. And, sometimes, to get lost and found again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Fox

**Author's Note:**

> For the supernaturalpromptchallenge
> 
> Month : September  
> Theme : Childhood  
> Prompt : Camp

The campground was no more than an hour’s walk from the cabins, but it felt impossibly far; like a world of its own. Maeve was nervous, her patrol was to spend two nights in the tents, then clean the campground and go back to the cabins. She was eager to get her Junior Camper Badge to add to her sash. She had not, however, expected the woods to be quite so dark. Or filled with so many noises. The worst thing she had not thought about was that she needed to step out there to get to the bathroom, and she badly needed to pee. Maeve took a deep breath and eased open the tent’s opening, trying not to wake up Lucy (it would have been rude). She grabbed her toiletry bag and stepped outside. It was well past midnight and the fire had quietly banked down to embers. It made the stark white electric light above the shared facilities building seem extra bright. It had been pointed out in the hike and was easy enough to find in the dark. 

The second worst thing she had not thought about was how, when she was done and stepping out of the bright electric glow of the building (and away from the icky smell of it), her night vision was completely gone. Everything past the circle of the one electric bulb (how bright it had seemed before!) was a deep inky black, with no distinguishable features. Maeve tried to remember which direction she had walked towards the building and started trying to make her way back. She might be scared, but she wasn’t a little kid anymore. She would not spend the night huddled in fear in a stinky toilet. 

Fifteen minutes later she admitted to herself it had been the wrong direction. The problem now was that she had no idea where she was or how to go back. She tried to recall the instructions they had all been given. _“If lost, stop walking. Find a friendly tree to adopt. Wait there until we have a chance to find you.”_ Maeve looked around and found a big pine tree. She could sit beneath the branches and wait there. If it rained it would block most of the water. It was a good plan, except for the rustle and low growl under the tree, some animal clearly having made friends with it first. She slowly backed away, scared, and started walking again.

\--

“I don’t understand. It is still sugar, with added carbon atoms from the ashes. There’s no nutrition in it. And now it’s everywhere. Should it be clinging to me like this?”

The voice was very deep and gravelly and a bit strange. It was unknown, but clearly human, which Maeve at this point considered a huge advantage.

“Yeah, it kinda is. I still can’t believe that a giant bag of marshmallows is the first thing you picked up as camp food.”

“What? It is the epitome of camp food. And we haven’t had roasted marshmallows in ages.”

“Yeah, Dad knew better than to give us that stuff. And that’s saying a lot.” 

Two more voices, in the same direction. Maeve could see the glow of a fire now. Besides, no one who ate roasted marshmallows could be really evil and dangerous, could they? She started walking towards them.

“Did you camp out with him often? On hunts?”

“Sometimes. But if we had candy it was more likely avoiding CPS until we could leave town.”

She stepped into the light of the fire and stopped to catch her breath. Two of the men were sitting down but the third, closest to her was standing up and holding a very scary looking knife.

“I… I’m lost,” she said. Maeve was quickly revisiting the idea of s'mores as an indication of good people. She was also considering the very real possibility of just bursting into tears. This had been a very bad idea. There were movies filled with this very bad idea, she knew. Matthew at school kept bragging about being allowed to watch them.

The one furthest from her made a coughing noise, drawing her attention away from the very scary knife-wielding man.

“Hey. It’s ok. I’m Sam. That is my brother Dean, who will not harm you,“ there was a very pointed raise of an eyebrow as he said that. “This is our friend Cas. What’s your name?”

“Ma… Maeve. Br.. Brooks.”

“I’m sorry for scaring you, Maeve,” Dean said, crouching down to be at her level, but not coming closer. He wasn’t holding the knife anymore, but she didn’t see where it went. “I.. huh... heard a noise and I thought it was a fox or a lynx.” His voice was surprisingly gentle for how rough it was.

“There're no wolves in this area and there was not enough noise for a bear.” The one called Cas added. He was frowning at his hands, which Maeve could see were covered in the goo of melted marshmallows and dirt sticking to the sugar. 

“I have wet wipes. For your hands,” she said. “I hate when my hands are sticky.”

“That is a very kind offer Maeve Brooks. Would you like to sit with us by the fire until daybreak?”

She nodded and walked closer. They seemed nice. A fox or a lynx sounded scary, it was a good reason to have a big knife. They didn’t have any tents. She waited for Cas to be done cleaning his hands and carefully folded the used napkin back into her bag. There was no point in losing her badge for littering. 

He wasn’t wearing good hiking clothes, she noted. It looked like the good clothes her dad wore for work, with a weird big beige coat. Maybe he didn’t have all of his outdoors skill badges either. Sam and Dean looked like they had proper going-in-the-woods outfits at least, jeans and layers of shirts. Sam was sitting down with one of his legs stretched out and raised on a log. He had long legs, she thought, he probably was taller then uncle Robert. He had a dark red (or maybe brown) blanket draped over his legs and tucked under his arms, but it was too short on him. 

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“What?”

“I did all the first aid pre-requisites last month. Your ankle is hurt so you’re keeping it higher.”

Sam smiled. He had a nice smile, it changed his face.

“Yeah, I’m a bit hurt. It’s why we’re camping here tonight. It wouldn’t be safe for me to walk in the dark.”

“That’s good.” She paused then sat down between him and Cas. “Can I have a marshmallow?” 

Dean threw his head back and started laughing, a full belly laugh that left tears on the sides of his eyes. He had been poking at the ground with a stick at the edge of the firelight, but he was turning back towards them now.

“See? Even the little fox knows the important stuff around a campfire.” 

“You can have mine,” said Cas, carefully picking up a bandana that held a small pyramid of the white gelatinous cylinders. “I don’t think I like them much.”

 

\--

“I’m cold,” said Maeve once all the candy had been eaten. She was also growing tired but was too proud to say it out loud.

“Here, you can have my blanket.” Dean rose smoothly to his feet and draped the quilt like blanket over her shoulders. It was big enough that she could roll herself completely in it. 

“But..” Sam tried to interrupt.

“But nothing. You’re injured, she’s a kid. You both have blanket priority over me.”

“If it gets too cold Dean and I can use my coat to share bodily warmth.” Everyone fell silent and turned to Cas. “It is the most efficient survival technique. In fact…”

“Ok Cas, we get it,” Dean said before the black haired man could go on. He might have been blushing, but it was hard to tell with the firelight. 

The blanket was old and worn, but warm and very soft. It smelled of the pine needles on the floor and leather and of the smoke from the fire. It smelt like safety, she decided.

She fell asleep listening to them. Dean would point to a constellation and Sam would try to remember the story of it. Cas would add comments here and there, about the color or texture of the light of a star. Or the choir of some of them. She dreamt of cotton candy clouds and green light singing on her skin. 

\--

The sun felt very bright when she woke up, but there was still dew everywhere so it must not have been that late. She groaned and swatted at the hand gently shaking her shoulder.

“Come on little fox. Time to wake up.”

Maeve opened her eyes, rubbing away the sleep. Dean was crouched next to her, offering her a granola bar and a lukewarm bottle of orange juice.

“Don’t have much for breakfast. But eat up and I’ll walk you to your friends while these two break camp. What do you say?”

“Thank you!” The granola was a bit stale, but she was ravenous. She ate all of it and very carefully put the wrapper in her bag along with the empty bottle of juice. She saw that Sam was still sleeping, but had the same granola and orange juice near him. Cas was carefully stirring dirt into the ashes of their fire, making sure there were no more embers. Neither of them had any juice in hand.

“Aren’t you eating too?” 

Dean smiled, it made the lines are his eyes crinkle. In the light, she could see that his eyes were pine needle green.

“I’ll eat later, there’s rations in the car, once we get Sam there. It’s ok, I’m big, I have reserves,” he patted his stomach, twisting a bit and making it balloon out to make her giggle.

Walking in the woods in daylight was much easier. Maeve could tell Dean was slowing down for her, but he was being nice about it. And pointing out easier paths (deer trails he called them) to walk along. He made very little sound as he walked, she noticed. He asked her some questions about where the troop’s tents were and nodded, picking a direction easily. It took them less than twenty minutes to reach her tent. Maeve smiled and waved at Lucy as they exited the tree line and walked into the clearing of the campgrounds. 

It’s only at that point that Maeve remembered that Laura was one of the Scout leaders on this trip. And Laura watches too much television (her mom said so) and believed that the world was like one of Matthew’s movies: filled with Stranger Danger and kidnappings. So really, it was no surprise that Laura started screeching really loudly at Dean and asking Maeve where he’d touched her and demanding that someone call the police. Not that she let anyone get a word in edgewise, on any of her requests.

“Hey! Hey!” Dean’s voice wasn’t soft anymore, it was harsh and a bit angry. It was also louder than Laura’s. His eyes were hard, the smile crinkle gone, he was frowning now, and his hands clenched into loose fists by his sides. Maeve wondered if he still had the scary knife on him. 

“She was lost. We watched over her during the night, and I’ll admit to feeding her too much sugar because, OK, a jumbo bag of discount marshmallow between 3 adults and a kid does not a proper meal make.” He took a deep breath and unclenched his hands but took a deliberate step towards Laura, crowding her. “Now, My moose of a brother twisted his ankle and because he’s so tall he bruised his ribs when he fell. So if you don’t mind lady, I have to get back to him so I can help him walk out of here.” He dropped his voice so it wouldn’t carry over the entire camp as he continued. “Listen, I don’t know who hurt you, but I’m not them. And you’d better not let them near these kids.”

Laura stuttered to a stunned silence, before turning around and trying to get the other kids away from the stranger. She had mixed success with that. Dean took a deep breath and shook his head, letting the anger drain out of him. He winked at Maeve and crouched down to her level again.

“I’ll be on my way now little fox. But before I go.” He dug a piece of paper from his pocket with a number written on it with big blocky letters. “This is my number. Either me or Sam will always pick up on that phone. If you’re ever scared, for whatever reason, just give us a call ok?”

Maeve nodded and took the scrap of paper. She didn’t think she’d ever use it, but it would be rude to turn it down. Lucy called her for breakfast, and by the time she looked back across the camp the tall man had merged back into the woods, like he’d never been there.


End file.
